The Propinquity production of Two Rooms at the Atlantic Theater Company
is the second production of the show in the past year. If you didn't
see the production at the Blue Heron Arts Center last fall, you should
go now. But if you did see that production, why, you may ask, should
you see it again?

Quite frankly, because the show is even more pertinent now than it was
then. Then, scarcely two months after September 11, the play seemed to
be a placating presence, maybe not providing the answers, but at least
clarifying the questions everyone had in the aftermath of the attack on
the World Trade Center. But Two Rooms seems even more harrowing and
topical now. Not bad for a play written in 1988.

Yes, the climate of the United States and its political outlook on a
great many things have changed since Lee Blessing wrote Two Rooms in
response to the Lebanese hostage crisis. But the conflict at the
central core of the play is one that transcends time and specific names
and places. If Two Rooms is performed again in fifty years, its
messages about the true war - politics versus the media - and the victims
it leaves in its wake will still be relevant.

That element is brought right to the forefront here, and it seems to be
the soul of director Steve Bebout's conception of the show. Reporter
Walker Harris (Matty D. Stuart) and politician Ellen Van Oss (Katie
Northlich) both fight for control of Lainie Wells (Christine Fall),
whose husband Michael (Guy Camilleri) was kidnapped and imprisoned.
Lainie's immediate response was to remove all the furniture from her
husband's home office, and spend as much time there as to be as close to
him as possible, emotionally and spiritually, though they are physically
separated by thousands of miles.

Lainie is pulled in every direction, told by Ellen to say nothing and by
Walker to say everything, never sure which (if either) of them truly has
her best interests at heart. That's the real strength of Two Rooms - it
takes no sides, and takes no prisoners. Northlich is cautiously
detached, Stuart emotionally manipulative, the young man trying to break
in to an adult world. But both make their cases convincingly.

Still, it's Fall who gives the best performance, a smoldering breakdown
that builds over the course of the show, exploding in a destructive
emotional fury near the end. She comes across as the true victim in the
struggle. Camilleri, unfortunately, never succeeds in bringing across
Michael's pain and loss. Their relationship, then, is lopsided,
Camilleri's affable nature creating a stronger bond with the audience
than with his wife. This greatly weakens the play, making Michael less
of a central figure and more of a ghost or memory who does little but
intrude on the reality of Lainie's world. Bebout's staging, with
Camilleri almost never offstage, does little to discourage this line of
thinking.

But Blessing's script, which dramatizes each side of the conflict
equally well, makes up for this shortcoming. This production, while
less emotionally charged than might be ideal, presents its story and
messages with fortitude and clarity, two vital qualities given the
subject matter and the world in which Two Rooms seems more relevant than
ever.